Second Life
Insights Welcome To 'Mixed Reality' : by Majeed Saleh in E-Government Bulletin, 18 February 2008 During the 2007 French presidential campaign the extreme right-wing Front National candidate Jean Marie Le Pen established his headquarters next to the Matrix Mall in a shopping area know as Porcupine. Soon his glass-fronted building was surrounded by placards and billboards demanding that he leave town and eventually the Front's base was abandoned and destroyed when protestors overwhelmed security and bombarded the building with exploding pigs. That these events actually happened is a clue to their location: Le Pen was the first presidential candidate to set up home in the virtual world Second Life. During the course of the campaign all of the major candidates followed suit and staged events in Second Life which saw speeches, rallies, demonstrations and meetings as well as genuine engagement with voters. France has the largest number of Second Life users after the US, so it was a natural move for politicians to try to engage potential voters in this medium. In Britain there have been fewer examples, although the then Environment Secretary David Miliband did use Second Life last year to promote the climate change debate. The US House of Representatives does have a Second Life counterpart, although this is not officially associated with the real McCoy; it was the idea of a Californian Democratic Representative named George Miller, and has been used for party promotional exercises including question and answer sessions and speech streaming. The Maldives (http://maldivesmission.ch/index.php?id=65) and Sweden (http://fastlink.headstar.com/sweden1) have both opened embassies in Second Life; members of staff are on hand to dispense tourist information and advise people on visa conditions. These examples show that so far the main uses of Second Life have been for promotion or information dissemination rather than interaction or service provision. But as we saw in part one of our series last issue (see E-Government Bulletin, 04 February 2008), the education sector is finding various significant and valuable uses for the virtual world and other public service areas could follow suit in the months and years to come. The City Council of Zoetermeer in the Netherlands spent 25,000 euros on constructing a virtual City Hall where it could hold meetings; as the first of its kind, the opening earned the city huge amounts of publicity, not least because of the two virtual streakers who put in an unscheduled appearance. Virtual worlds open up speeches, seminars and lectures to wider participation and introduce a level of interactivity impossible in conventional websites. In a virtual world you can examine interactive working models and attend exhibitions that would be impossible in real life. The UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is among 20 educational and research bodies in the US and UK that have founded SciLands (http://www.scilands.org/), a virtual continent for science and technology research organisations in Second Life. Some of the simulations available there, and indeed throughout Second Life, act like an interactive documentary, allowing users to closely examine objects and environments they would never normally be able to observe such as an underwater cave or the centre of a hurricane. Some of the best examples of this are provided by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's islands (http://fastlink.headstar.com/noaa1). On December 18 2007 the first NanoShow took place in 'mixed reality' with about 50 guests attending in real life and another 50 attending the show at NanoLands (http://www.nanolands.org/), the NPL's nanotechnology island within SciLands. The show was a considered a success and more have been planned. Also in conjunction with the NPL, Imperial College London has created Second Health (http://secondhealth.wordpress.com), a virtual hospital based on the principles and recommendations outlined in the strategy paper 'Healthcare for London: a framework for action'. Second Health is described as an "experimental, innovative and efficient means of communicating complex healthcare messages as well as illustrating what healthcare of the future could look like". Second Health is currently inviting feedback on its 'vision of the future' in the hope of refining it further. This is one of the most interesting possibilities of virtual worlds: they provide a relatively inexpensive way of consulting concerned parties over real-world developments through the use of life-size virtual models and simulations. An early example of this with possible future implications for planning authorities was set by 'Association Accomplir', a Parisian residents' association which was disappointed with the lack of consultation regarding the redevelopment of the Jardin Des Halles. To push the issue the group started a competition for new designs for the gardens in Second Life (http://fastlink.headstar.com/halles1) . The winning designers were awarded a prize of 275,000 Linden Dollars (just over 1,000 US dollars at today's exchange rate), and successful designers of other garden features such as the playground, a sculpture, a fountain, a gate and the public toilets, received smaller awards (see http://fastlink.headstar.com/halles2). These examples point to the fact that Second Life is a very different medium to the web, and organisations that are using it purely to distribute information are failing to realise its true potential. In fact, virtual worlds are not a good medium for information exchange. Walk (or fly) into many virtual campuses or company offices looking for detailed information and if nobody is there to greet you, you may find the only information available is in the form of fuzzy text and pictures plastered across the walls or on virtual notice boards in an otherwise empty room. Saveable handouts, flyers and documents may be on offer, appearing as icons on screen as you enter a building or event, but looking for information in Second Life is relatively time consuming - by searching the web you could have found what you were looking for in seconds. The true potential benefits of virtual worlds to enhancing public services are to be found in live networking, and the ability to create and interact with life-size representations and models. The experience of watching video or listening to music in Second Life is also enhanced by the ability to see and interact with other members of the audience. The question remains however as to whether the time is yet right for the public sector beyond the educational and research spheres to invest in creating a presence in virtual worlds that are still relatively poorly developed and relatively poorly used. category:technology